


Look ahead (stand by me)

by Amazaria



Series: Everything is as you left it, just a little more damaged (don't worry, you've always been good at fixing things) [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Conflict Resolution, Gen, In a sense, Platonic Relationships, Post-Enies Lobby Arc, Post-Water 7 Fight, The author's insistent feelings about Chopper and death, The author's insistent feelings about Usopp and being a role model, Your whole life falling apart and other things you and your friends are scared of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazaria/pseuds/Amazaria
Summary: "You left."There was a silence, that Usopp used to remind himself that it wasn't possible to drown in his guilt no matter how hard he tried.(or: in which Chopper wants to fix things, as doctors are wont to want, and in which Usopp is a little more scared than the situation requires, as liars are wont to be.)
Relationships: Tony Tony Chopper & Usopp
Series: Everything is as you left it, just a little more damaged (don't worry, you've always been good at fixing things) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1563889
Comments: 9
Kudos: 65





	Look ahead (stand by me)

_"Someone help me,  
It's moving faster then ever.  
A second chance is another way to remember:  
I'm going down down, down down, down,  
I'm going down down, down down.  
[...]  
And it all comes down to this."  
_

Aquilo, It All Comes Down to This [(x)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07-Qf_IzZV4)

* * *

"Usopp!" Called Chopper.

The sniper froze and tried to pretend he hadn't been avoiding the doctor for the past three hours.

(To be fair, it wasn't Chopper alone; he had been avoiding most everyone, which was really harder than it had any right to be when you were stuck on a ship and weren't quite committed to fully throwing yourself into the sea to avoid conversations.)

"Come on, I need to change your bandages!", said Chopper with a slightly nervous smile, like they were strangers still. Maybe they were, though; Usopp felt so out of place these days that he thought maybe traveling with actual strangers would be more comfortable.

Usopp closed his eyes for a quarter of a second, just enough to mourn or regret, maybe, and then followed him to the sickbay.

It was uncomfortable, in the sense that it existed, and that was yet another thing that was so different from Merry; it was also silent, much too silent, and Usopp tried to find something to say and ended up apologizing.

("I'm sorry, you know. I was- awful. I'm sorry.")

Chopper looked up, steady hands stopped just over one of Usopp's numerous gunshot wounds. 

"Luffy forgave you," he said decisively, and Usopp didn't know what that meant, and hated his own uncertainty.

"I know," he answered, wincing when Chopper began unwrapping part of his bandages. "That doesn't mean you did, though."

"I-," started Chopper, and visibly steeled himself. "You _left._ "

There was a silence, that Usopp used to remind himself that it wasn't possible to drown in his guilt no matter how hard he tried.

"You said that Luffy didn't care about Merry, and you _left_ , and I _tried to help you,_ and you said that _we weren't_ -"

"I didn't _mean it,_ " and for all that he was sincere, it sounded more like he was being defensive, and Usopp hated it, hated that he had to shoulder all the blame; hated feeling small and inadequate when he had always tried to be _so much more_ for Chopper. It felt like his cover had been broken, like the lies he'd woven around himself had shattered and fallen to the ground and all that was left was _him,_ without any of the colors or the qualities; felt like the place he'd carved for himself was suddenly too large, too impressive, and for all that he tried to fill it he constantly fell short.

(He felt like he was being himself wrong; or maybe that he _was_ wrong, that there was something just a little skewed with him, just a little off, and yet that little thing was enough for him to never fit right with all of them again.)

"You still _said it,"_ retorted Chopper, a hint of resentment piercing through his voice, a little bit of hurt that Usopp had never thought he would ever cause. "And then- and then we went to Enies Lobby, and I was so _worried,_ and I _missed you-"_

"I'm sorry," repeated Usopp, stupidly. He wished his bandages weren't undone so he could run away, or maybe hug Chopper; or maybe so his trembling hands would have something to pick at, so his shaking shoulders didn't feel so obvious, so he felt there was at least _something_ done right with him.

"You loved Merry," retorted Chopper, his hands stilled over one of Usopp's many wounds, staring at the cloth in his fingers like the key to unraveling all his mixed-up feelings was hidden in between the bloodstains, "but _so did we_."

"I know," Usopp said, on autopilot. He bit his tongue so the pain would stop him from crying, an old trick of his that he hadn't needed to use in at least months. "I know. I missed you, too."

"Then why did you _leave_?", and he had none of the answers Chopper wanted to hear, had only answers that even himself didn't want to think: _I was angry, I was homesick, I was stupid, I felt ashamed because I'd just been beaten up, I had seen the impossible done and didn't understand why it couldn't happen again, and I still don't._

Usopp, shoulders all the way down and eyes shut tightly, let out a sigh, wished desperately he could turn back time or find some other way to escape the consequences of his actions.

"I'm sorry, Chopper."

The silence was a tangible presence in the infirmary, the space full of words neither of them dared to say, for fear of hurting the other. 

(And Usopp had been so focused on losing Luffy, and with him his direction in life and his home and his self-esteem, that he had never even thought about losing Chopper, at first.

In truth he had not even thought about losing the rest of the crew; had thought about himself, and himself only, and Merry too but not really. It had only hit him somewhere in the middle of the ride to Enies Lobby; he had thought _if we don't save Robin I'll never see her again_ , and then, immediately after, _as soon as they save her I'll never see them again_.

He hadn't thought about not being a part of _them_ ; had been thinking of the Strawhats as _us_ for so long that excluding himself from the group felt inherently wrong.

He had looked around, and realized, _I lost all of them, too,_ and had not been able to forget it again.)

"I don't want anyone to leave," the young doctor finally mumbled. "I don't- we're supposed to do this together, aren't we? Aren't we? And then you left, and I just- I hadn't realized that could happen, that you'd just _leave_ , I didn't- I don't want anyone to _leave_."

He looked- heartbroken, and vulnerable, and so, so scared, and Usopp-

(Usopp wondered, sometimes, what it meant to Chopper, _leaving._

Chopper, who had looked a little to the side, and had turned his head forward again only to find his herd had abandoned him; Chopper, surrounded by death and its dozens of euphemisms, _gone_ , _passed away, disappeared, left us, left left left_ ; Chopper, living with hundreds of memories and a few regrets and a single promise tucked under his hat and engraved onto his heart; Chopper, the doctor, the youngest, always surrounded by his worries and the knowledge that one day all his efforts would be rendered meaningless by the seconds that kept on slipping by them, again and again and again, _where has the time gone?_

Chopper, joining them in Drum just in time to stop Nami from slipping away from them a second time, just in time to care for Luffy's fingers and get offered a new home and a new hope and a new life, all at once; Chopper, joining them in Drum, and leaving Vivi behind in Alabasta, tears dreaming down his face; Chopper, who had always known a crew with Vivi, just like Usopp had always known a crew with Nami, and suddenly didn't have it anymore. Chopper, always clinging to someone, curling up by Zoro's side and checking on each of them as if afraid he'll get there too late, as if afraid he did something, anything, wrong-)

Usopp had tried -had hoped, in truth, had done so much more than just _tried,_ because he was used to trying and failing, but not to hoping and failing, not since Luffy- had tried, desperately, since the beginning, to ease the doctor's worries, had played along in games and been so delighted to see the ever-present fear melt away, little by little by little.

But then Chopper had watched Robin leave, had watched Usopp leave, had watched as Robin cried alone and had thought, like all of them, _why did I miss it?_ and _am I too late?_ and _why didn't she trust me, could I have made her trust me?,_ as if Robin would have ever endangered her precious little bit of happiness by bringing over the dark clouds of her past.

(Usopp was thankful for very few things about his departure, but he was definitely thankful to not have inflicted it on Robin, to not have ruined her only safe place before she could surrender herself to the Marines; to not have made her sit through yet another thing that should have been a constant falling apart amidst tears and blood.)

Then-

Then- 

Then Chopper had watched Merry leave, as they all had, of course. Had watched her sink -had watched her _die-_ , as the doctor of the ship, as the one who knew what _triage_ meant, what _incurable_ meant, what _too late_ meant, though that last one they all knew, in the end. 

And here they were, now: Usopp, back and guilty and remembering all too well their beginnings, Chopper, hesitant and scared and wondering about their future; and Usopp thought he might cry if he didn't manage to fix at least this, to erase or at least chase away the fear surrounding Chopper for just an hour, a minute, a second.

"Nobody's going to leave," he let out quietly, hesitantly, fingers clenched into fists digging into his knees. Chopper, eyes shining with tears that he was trying to keep at bay, shook his head furiously, his hands still holding the bloodstained bandages. "You can't promise that," he said, "nobody can say that, Zoro said that he'd leave if he didn't realize his dreams, and Nami would go back for her sister, she gave up on her dream for so long for her, and you just- you _just_ left!"

 _Luffy wouldn't let us leave,_ almost said Usopp, but Luffy loved them too much to step on their freedom, so of course he would.

"Nobody is going to leave," he repeated instead, fumbling for words to express the certainty he had and didn't understand enough. "Nobody- where we go, we go together. Chopper, we'll be together for-"

 _For forever,_ he wanted to say, but forever didn't exist and they were lies that were too cruel to be said out loud, especially to those deeply aware it was a lie.

"For a long time," he settled on. "For- Chopper, Luffy's not letting anyone go, not ever."

"He let _you_ go."

And- and he had, of course, but-

"It was a fight," said Usopp. "It was a fight, and we were both angry, and- and I was being stupid, I was an idiot, Chopper, that's never going to happen to again-"

"But he let you _leave._ "

"He's always going to let us leave, though. We just need to stay."

Chopper sighed, seemingly lost; or maybe not. They both understood their captain enough to know that he would let them go, should their reasons be enough for him; but maybe he couldn't understand why someone would want to leave, and that- that was not for Usopp to explain.

(Or at least he did not want to explain it; did not want to articulate the feeling of betrayal, the aching disappointment, the aimless anger that had taken him once he had found himself alone on a silent Merry.)

"So promise me," Chopper said finally, in a tone that held all the pleading of a lost child and all the authority of a doctor. "That you're not going away again. Or at least- not like that."

It should have been easy to promise, but the thing was: Usopp didn't make a lot -if any- promise.

(It had to do with his mother's reassuring smile, _I'm just dizzy from the heat, love, I promise, don't worry_ ; it had to do with Kaya's, _I'm just a little tired, is all, I swear, I'll be better tomorrow;_ it had to do with himself, _I'll become a brave warrior of the seas!,_ and where was he now, uh?

It had to do- it had to do with the knowledge of how easy it was to lie, once you got used to it, how smoothly the stories slipped from your mouth without you even meaning to tell some.

Usopp was a lot of things but he wasn't Luffy, and miracles to him were out of reach, and once he started breaking promises he feared he just wouldn't stop.)

Promises were- were expectations stacked on expectations, to him; much too scary, much too permanent, an ever-present awareness of that one thing he just _couldn't mess up, don't ruin it, you promised._

But- but that was the thing, though, wasn't it? Promises were _supposed to_ be hard to keep: they didn't mean anything otherwise. Promises were supposed to require sacrifices, and second thoughts, and a tether to something other than your own interests; it was useless, to promise something that was guaranteed.

People made promises because they weren't sure; and they weren't supposed to be a constant, they were supposed to be an assurance that you would _try,_ at least.

Usopp felt scared most of the time, and even that was a euphemism; but trying he knew how to do, and with his crew by his side he succeeded more often than not, didn't he?

But failing Chopper- failing one of them, once again-

(There must have been a word, he thought, for the paralyzing feeling that came each time he thought about it. There must have been a word, for that kind of fear, for the knot in his throat and the burning in his eyes.

There must have been a word for the weight of the expectations he put on himself; there must have been a word for the dread and the uncertainty; or at least he wished there was, because if he knew what it was, what it was called, then maybe he'd know how to get rid of it.)

Usopp stopped himself short of sighing.

He was tired of being scared. He'd been back with the Strawhats for less than a week and had already gotten sick of tiptoeing around them; wished he could go back to the easy affection and careless shouts, that had been replaced by whispered apologies and hesitant looks.

They never hesitated, always threw themselves into the deep end without bothering to think about holding their breath; so why were they second-guessing themselves now? Why was _he_ second-guessing himself now, why was he hiding behind only vaguely rational reasons?

(Because this was important; because this was fragile; because this was unknown; because, because, because.

Usopp knew enough about lying to recognizing bad excuses.)

There was a difference between leaving and being made to leave, and Usopp had no intention of doing the former, so what was stopping him?

"I promise," he said finally; the moment felt too solemn, too heavy, something that should have happened between two rulers, not between two friends that were scared of change and clinging to each other. "I promise I'm staying, Chopper."

And the solemnity held, and held, and held, until-

"Good," let out Chopper, still too seriously; but then he smiled gratefully. "Everything's okay, then."

(And as he threw away the old bandages and went to get new ones, Usopp stared at his scars and breathed, "Everything's okay", his voice layered with something akin to incredulity, or relief, or awe.

Being a liar did mean you knew when people said the truth, after all.)

**Author's Note:**

> Me, each time I finish a new Strawhat fic: oh, I'm definitely done with Strawhat friendship fics now! I can concentrate on my other projects!
> 
> My brain, every time: hmmm. but they love each other.
> 
> Me, tearfully: they /do/ love each other,,,,


End file.
